Slate AX can't connect to VPN server when Client is On

Hi all,

This was working perfectly since the upgrade to 4.7 but now I cannot connect to my VPN Servers (Wireguard or OpenVPN) when my VPN client is running. I usually have VPN cascading enabled so that all connections go through my router and then out to my commercial provider.

I do the same:

Berly + Slate -> Flint (WG-Server @Homecountry) -> cascading to NordVPN.

So if i turn off the Flint being Client of NordVPN all devices get the IP from my Home-Router.

Berly & Flint are on 4.7.4 while the Slate is still 4.7.0 and its working.

Hello,

  1. Please draw a network topology figure.
  2. Please let us know the router model and operates firmware version.
  3. When the server router is connected to a commercial VPN (such as NordVPN/Sufshark, etc.), can't the client router connect to the server router?

The router model is Slate AX (GL-AXT1800) and the firmware with the issue is 4.7, 4.6.11 had no issue at all and after rolling back and restoring my settings the issue has resolved but I would like to get it resolved on 4.7 so that I can stay up to date.

When the server router is connected to a commercial VPN (proton in my case) the client router or mobile device running wireguard or openvpn cannot connect to the server but when I turn off the client mode on the server router then the remote devices can then connect.

1 Like

Hello,

I'm trying to reproduce this issue on my AXT1800 (v4.7.0).

I deployed by your topology and configuration, I found that seems reproduce but not sure if it is same as your issue reported:

When the WG VPN Server and WG VPN client of the Server router are enabled at the same time, I was able to reproduce the iPhone cannot connect to the router VPN server, but after waiting for a while (about 10mins), the iPhone can connect to the VPN server (!) but the delay time is very high.

Also, if I restart the VPN server (the VPN client remains enabled), the iPhone can connect to the VPN, and the delay is normal at this time.

Anyway, I will submit this issue to R&D to check, thank you.

The issue you have reproduced seems to be the same although my vpn client (iPhone) times out before 10 minutes.

The only difference is that even when I restart the vpn server it does not fix the issue.

Hello,

We tried to reproduce this issue again and added the Android WireGuard APP client as a comparison.

We found that Android WG seems to have no problems, the establish connection time is within 5 seconds, and every time server or client restarted the connection, it is stable and normal to reconnect.

Probably there are some problems with the iOS WG APP, and the response is slow sometimes when shaking hands with the server, which leads to mistakenly thinking that there may be problems with the router WG server.

In addition, iOS has a hibernation mechanism if the screen off.
After the iPhone locks the screen, it will refuse the ping, and it will mistakenly think that the iPhone WG is disconnected, but the actual WG connection is not disconnected. Once the iPhone is unlocked, the ping client WG IP will respond again.

This problem ticket is temporarily closed, no issue is confirmed and found in the router WG server.

Hi,

The issue isn’t just with WireGuard unfortunately, it also happens with OpenVPN. I also don’t let the iPhone close and the issue persists.

I simply can’t connect at all, OpenVPN does show a tls handshake error in the log however so there is some sort of connection going on it just seems to not verify correctly.

Hi,

Please try to compare test the WG APP clients with other OS, such as PC or Android APP.

In our reproduce tests, the connection to the WG client APP for Android is without issue which as the compare sample. As well as even on the iOS WG APP, when it is connecting to server, wait for a while or off/on to reconnect, it will also be connected.